Page 18 of Serenity Falls

‘Okay, it’s horrible. I know. But we need to move past it.’

She rolls her eyes with such ferocity I’m amazed she doesn’t give her herself a friction burn. ‘We need to leave.’

I understand the calmness now. She thought that this would derail our plans to stay here.

‘And go where, exactly?’ I ask her. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, we sold our house in the UK.’

‘Yeah, but we must have had some money from that? You said it was better to sell because it wouldn’t rent for much.’

I shake my head. I’ve been trying to avoid dumping this on Sadie, but it seems tonight is a night for cold, hard truths.

‘Once we paid the solicitors and agent’s fees we didn’t make a lot of money on the house. I bought when prices were high, and prices have fallen.’

‘What about Grandma’s money?’

‘I didn’t realize how much had already been eaten up by the care-home fees. There’s some money set aside for you to go to college or uni, but that’s about it.’ I look at her. ‘I guess Grandma thought that this was her gift to us. The golden egg.’

‘Well, it’s a fucking rotten golden egg.’ Tears well in her eyes. ‘Can’t we just pretend to live here and rent somewhere else?’

‘How will we do that, Sadie? Be realistic.’

‘I don’t want to.’ She shoves the pizza to one side, knocking over her Diet Coke. The brown liquid hisses and oozes over the pristine floor. Neither of us makes a move to clear it up.

‘I don’t know why we couldn’t just stay where we were and say, “Fuck it,” to this place?’

And here it comes. ‘Because I lost my job, Sadie. Okay? I couldn’t pay the mortgage any more. If this hadn’t come up, I don’t know how we would have survived.’

She stares at me, face ashen. ‘You lost your job? How?’ And then I see the realization dawn. I never wanted her to know. But I was probably stupid to think I could hide it from her.

‘You said you were just taking some leave until it all blew over?’ she says.

‘Yeah, they gave me some time off and then told me not to come back. I was given the chance to resign rather than be sacked.’ I sigh. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘I know it’s not my fault,’ she spits. ‘It’s that twat, Decker. But you should have told me.’

‘Sadie—’

‘No. I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to bed. Hopefully, I won’t find a dead body dressed as Daffy the fucking Dolphin lying in it.’

‘Daphne,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘It’s Daphne the Dolphin.’

Her glare could cut diamonds. She stands and storms off towards the kitchen.

‘Wrong way,’ I mutter.

She whirls around. ‘I hate this fucking house, this fucking town and this fucking country.’

And with that she is gone, a blizzard of hurt and fury in a Nightmare before Christmas T-shirt and shorts.

I sit for a moment, staring at the puddle of Diet Coke. I should probably clean it up before it attracts ants or cockroaches or those tiny lizards that are (actually) quite cute.

Still, I sit there. The aroma of the cooling pizza is making me feel slightly sick. Decker, I think. Fucking James Decker.

‘We understand you’re upset about the alleged incident with your daughter, Mr Barker, but your actions were not professional.’